Oregon State Police officials say the Harney County Sheriff, a sheriff’s sergeant and an FBI agent attempted to arrest a man wanted on a fugitive warrant out of Indiana Wednesday after receiving a tip.

The attempt ended with the fugitive dead after a brief confrontation, and at least one shot each fired by Harney County Sheriff David Glerup and Sgt. Brian Needham; the FBI agent did not fire his weapon, said Lt. Gregg Hastings of the Oregon State Police.

Hastings said the incident began to unfold at around 12:30 p.m. when the three law enforcement officials drove to a remote residence off Taylor Road, about a quarter mile east of Oregon 78 in Southeast Oregon.

As the three men drove up a dirt driveway they spotted a pickup truck traveling in the opposite direction on a parallel dirt road, separated by a fence.

Officers said they knew the man, whose appearance matched the description of the wanted man, was armed when they saw a rifle hanging on a gun rack inside the truck.

Both vehicles stopped, and the three officers and the man got out. After a brief exchange of words, the suspect got back in the pickup truck and sped away, Hastings said. That’s when Glerup and Needham each fired at least one shot at the pickup truck.

The suspect’s truck stopped about a quarter mile away, where the officers found the man inside with a gunshot wound to the head, a rifle on the seat next to him. Paramedics who responded declared the man dead at the scene.

"There is no evidence to indicate he died after being shot at by police," Hastings said. "Investigators have not ruled out that it may have been from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and will look to the autopsy for confirmation."

The suspect’s name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin, and an autopsy is also pending, Hastings said.

But Wendy Osborne, an FBI spokeswoman
in Indiana, said a fingerprint comparison was in the works to determine
if the man is Phillip Ferguson, a stockbroker and financial consultant who
has been missing for more than a decade after allegedly bilking
investors out of $30 million.

Ferguson, 62, vanished in 2000 while his Indiana investment business
was under a federal investigation. Grant County prosecutors later
charged him with 90 counts of security violations.

"He
basically sold investments that didn't exist," said Brad Skolnik, who
was the Indiana securities commissioner back in 2000. "He printed up
bogus account statements and other documents that allowed him to cover
up the scheme."

Skolnik said Thursday that most of
the alleged victims were elderly people who thought they were investing
in safe, conservative investments.

Ferguson's case
has been featured on "America's Most Wanted." According to its website,
Ferguson has several aliases, one of which is Roy Vernon Cox.

People who lived near the man who died Wednesday said they knew their neighbor as Vernon Cox.

Bec
Stoddart, 86, said she moved into her home four years ago, and Cox had
been her neighbor the whole time. She said Cox told her that his wife
had died and he moved to the Burns area because he wanted to try his
hand at alfalfa farming.

Stoddart said Cox was a
busy man, so she didn't have a lot of interaction with him. She
remembered a time when he plowed her road after a big snowstorm,
allowing her to get in and out.